Since Monday, NewsBusters has been presenting each category from the Media Research Center’s “Best Notable Quotables of 2015,” our annual awards for the year’s worst journalism. Today, the “Ruining the Revolution Award,” for journalists wailing about how awful it will be for communist Cuba to become more like the capitalist U.S. Winning this award, Fox News Channel anchor Shepard Smith who fretted that if American businesses such as Taco Bell or Lowe’s moved to Cuba, it could “ruin the place.”
Cuba
By Curtis Houck | December 9, 2015 | 9:32 PM EST
According to a Wednesday night post on the website Long War Journal by Thomas Joscelyn, a former detainee held at Guantanamo Bay named Ibrahim Qosi has rejoined the world of Islamic terrorism and ascended to a leadership post in al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) following his release in July 2012.
CBS' 'Madam Secretary' Shows Sympathy with BLM, Then Uses it to Lift the Cuban Trade Embargo. No, Really.
By Dylan Gwinn | November 15, 2015 | 11:15 PM EST Madam Secretary checked off a couple of different boxes for a future Hillary run. In an episode titled “You Say You Want a Revolution,” we open with a scene where an apparently harmless Chicago traffic stop in the late 70’s turns violent. Because the cop started it, obviously.
By Brad Wilmouth | October 14, 2015 | 1:11 PM EDT
On Wednesday's CNN Newsroom with Carol Costello, during a discussion of the Democratic presidential debate, liberal CNN political analyst Marc Lamont Hill defended Bernie Sanders' socialist views and griped about Hillary Clinton apparently taking a jab at the Vermont Senator as the CNN analyst complained that "she's playing to people's insecurities and fears," and "play[ing] to the cheap seats."
By Scott Whitlock | September 21, 2015 | 12:51 PM EDT
Good Morning America journalist Terry Moran on Monday hailed Pope Francis’s “unforgettable” meeting with the “revolutionary” Fidel Castro. Moran also skimped on coverage of protesters who spoke out. The reporter gushed, “An unforgettable moment: The Pope meets with Fidel Castro, the 89-year-old revolutionary and a Pope who is shaking up the world, too.”
By Curtis Houck | September 17, 2015 | 4:25 AM EDT
In the late hours of Wednesday night after the Republican debate, MSNBC’s Hardball host Chris Matthews was in his element as he whined about the 2016 GOP candidates being “very ideological tonight” and targeted the Cuban-American heritage of Senators Marco Rubio (Fl.) and Ted Cruz (Tex.) for thinking that “they still are fighting a Cold War” and “treat[ing] Obama like he’s Castro.”
By Mark Finkelstein | August 18, 2015 | 8:34 AM EDT
Al Hunt did stop short of predicting something so horrible it could never happen in America--federal marshals armed with assault weapons hunting down children cowering in closets to forcibly return them to a Communist dictatorship. Oh, wait, that really did happen, under President Bill Clinton, when Elian Gonzalez was returned to Cuba at the point of a gun.
On today's Morning Joe an Al Hunt on the verge of hysteria predicted that Donald Trump's immigration plan would lead to "federal raids on maternity wards." He claimed that implementing the plan would cost "11 trillion dollars," which assuming 11 million illegals in the country converts to $1 million each. Joe Scarborough chimed in to claim that "we don't have the money to do that."
By P.J. Gladnick | August 15, 2015 | 2:20 PM EDT
As Kyle Drennen pointed out yesterday, the major networks almost completely avoided any coverage of dissidents when reporting on the American flag being raised at the newly-reopened U.S. embassy in Havana. However, there was one report at CNN that stood out in sharp contrast to their reticence to criticize the Castro regime. That was the report by Jake Tapper on The Lead in which he provided an in-depth interview with one of the leading Cuban dissidents.
By Curtis Houck | August 14, 2015 | 5:03 PM EDT
In the midst of the covering the U.S. Embassy’s reopening in Havana, Cuba on Friday morning, MSNBC’s The Rundown couldn’t help but repeatedly ooze over the fact that Secretary of State John Kerry attended the ceremony using a walking cane that belonged to former President John F. Kennedy’s brother and former fellow Massachusetts Democratic Senator Ted Kennedy. Gushing that it’s “a fascinating backstory,” NBC's Andrea Mitchell made the first mention just after 9:00 a.m. Eastern about Kerry using “Teddy Kennedy’s cane.”
By Kyle Drennen | August 14, 2015 | 4:38 PM EDT
While all three broadcast networks on Friday morning celebrated the American flag being raised at the newly-reopened U.S. embassy in Havana, CBS ignored Cuban dissidents not being invited to the ceremony, while NBC and ABC gave mere seconds to the controversy.
By Ken Shepherd | August 13, 2015 | 9:14 PM EDT
Cuban dissidents will not take part in Friday's formal ceremony opening the U.S. Embassy in Havana tomorrow, something that Secretary of State John Kerry is chalking up to a matter of respecting diplomatic protocol and a lack of space at the venue. But the controversy over the matter was omitted entirely from an NBC News article at MSNBC.com on Thursday evening.
By Kyle Drennen | July 21, 2015 | 4:27 PM EDT
In a softball interview with Secretary of State John Kerry aired on her MSNBC show on Tuesday, host Andrea Mitchell was in awe of Kerry meeting with the Cuban foreign minister on Monday following the reopening of the Communist nation’s embassy in Washington: “The first time since 1958 a Cuban foreign minister was here in this building....Did you have a sense of history? Did he?”